The heart - the organ you surely cannot do without!
From the old times men and women realized that human heart is such an important spring of life, no man or woman could be without it. From those times the heart is a symbol of something totally dear and necessary for the very survival of any individual. No wonder our speech is full of word-combinations mentioning the heart.
Persons used to believe that the might of any person is in the heart. Some communities were certain human soul is in the heart, others we sure every idea, either light or dark, is born in the heart, that is why they said that a bad personality has a black heart beating in the chest!
“You are my heart” - so we say about the most important man or woman in our life. The personality able of charming everybody gets the title of “the heart of the company”. When something awful happens to our beloved ones we always convince them not “to take it all to heart”. A savagedreadful and indifferent man is called “heartless”. And if someone really enjoys food we refer him or her to “hearty eaters”. No doubt you can expand this list with your own examples demonstrating how important is the heart for humans!
Now armed with every piece of knowledge up-to-date science provides us with we do understand that the heart is a mere organ, but it keeps counting throbs in elation when we are happy and continues crying when we have dark periods of our lives. Who knows, maybe that is the reason why dangerous failures in the work of human hearts are responsible for 25% of the total deaths all over the world! Let us get important information about the heart to recognize the first symptoms of any heart illness and to be able to keep your unique biological engine intact!
Human heart just as hearts of all animals, is a hollow muscular organ of the body’s circulatory system. Its function is pumping blood throughout the blood vessels. Its persistent rhythmic contractions pump as much as 5-6 liters of blood every minute, about 360 liters of blood every hour and 8 000 - 10 000 liters of blood daily! Normal contraction rate of any healthy grownup person is about 60-80 a minute, i.e. about 4 500 contractions an hour or 100 000 - 108 000 daily! Sounds incredible, doesn’t it! Docs ofter refer heart troubles to cardiac affairs. The point is word cardiac comes from the Greek “kardia” meaning “related to the heart”. Our hearts are very complicated. Normal functioning of the heart and various heart problem called cardiopathies are carefully studied by cardiology.
Human heart is divided into four chambers. The two upper chambers are called the left and right atria, while the two lower chambers are called the right and left ventricles. Sometimes physicians speak about the right heart (right atrium and right ventricle together) and the left heart (the left atrium and left ventricle together).
Usually your heart is as large as a fist, it takes up the major part of the chest, it is slightly shifted to the left and it weighs as much as 250 and 350 grams.
We have already mentioned it above that, the major function of the heart is pumping blood, but this activity is a very complicated thing! The heart always pushes our blood in one direction. It gets from the atria to the ventricles and moves on through arteries. Powerful triscupid, mitral, aortic and pulmonary valves in the heart prevent the blood from going backwards. It is vital because the heart at the same time pushes de-oxygenated blood towards the lungs and oxygenated blood to every system and organ of our body!
The right heart is responsible for collecting de-oxygenated blood in its atrium and pumping it through the ventricle right into the lungs, where carbon dioxide is dropped off (when we breathe out) and oxygen picked up (when we inhale). This happens with the help of red blood cells taking part in the process of diffusion.
The left heart is responsible for gathering oxygenated blood from the lungs in its atrium and moving it through the ventricle and via the aorta out to the body. As you have already guessed, a much greater force is needed to pump the blood through the large systemic circulation. that is exactly why the muscle wall surrounding the left ventricle is considerable thicker than that of the right ventricle moving the blood right into the lungs.
The bulk of individuals carelessly think their unique biological engine will always be there for them and they never do a thing to support it. As some cardiologists remind, you have a healthy heart if it never reminds you of the fact it is there, in your chest and keeps working 24/7. It is a pity, people start taking care of the heart only when it fails them for the first time when it is to late to prevent a trouble.
Do you know what habits, ways of life and behavior hurt your unique biological ticker? First of all, stressful jobs and family rows make your heart beat at a dangerous speed. Lack of sleep and leisure, a stream of evil emotions and the feeling of deprivation make the situation worse. Poor ecology, irregular recreations add some strain to your heart, too. Junk and fast food, irregular meals and wrong diets do not provide your heart with elements important for its flawless functioning. Lack of physical exercise make your heart muscles weaker, as a result your motor is not always able of managing extra strain. Bear in mind that extra heavy physical activity constantly forces your heart to work at the top of its abilities making it wear out.
Any health problems you ever survived or have now affect your heart, too. To guarantee your soon recovery your tireless ticker doubles and triples its efforts and keeps moving blood through your vessels when you are running high temperature, when you are intoxicated or when you have to fight some infection! Excess weight, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol considerably increase the risk of getting a heart trouble, too.
To help your heart be healthy:
- avoid mental stress and strain;
- try to obtain stable position in life;
- think positive, be optimistic, avoid overreacting;
- walk a lot, go in for some sport;
- choose a well-balanced diet;
- control your body weight and blood pressure.
Please, see your doctor immediately if:
- you feel your heart working in your chest;
- you are short of breath without considerable physical activity;
- you have trouble breathing (blood may back up into the lungs);
- you have pain in the chest (meaning the heart muscle is not getting enough blood flow);
- your heart feels unusually big;
- your legs and feet swell (blood is backing up from in the lower body);
- you feel weak (the body and brain do not get enough blood to supply them with oxygen);
- your skin and lips turn blue (too little oxygen is in the bloodstream to supply the cells in the body);
- your heart beats irregularly (palpitations).
Those could be the premonitory symptoms of a heart disease!
Heart disease is a general term for a variety of troubles with the heart. Physicians use the word cardiopathy. Irrestective of the term, any heart disease means that the biological motor does not work normally.
The short classification of heart diseases counts congenital heart diseases and acquired heart diseases. Congenital heart diseases are the heart problems a baby is born with. Acquired heart diseases are those disorders that are developed by people in the course of their lives. The main part of heart diseases are acquired ones.
Cardiologists state there are three common kinds of acquired heart diseases:
1. The trouble with the blood vessels carrying blood to the heart muscle - so called Coronary Artery Disease. The blood vessels in question get thinner, some of them can be blocked, that is why blood cannot flow through them at normal speed, finally the heart muscle cannot work normally, it becomes weak and thin. In the most difficult cases the blood flow stops altogether and the heart muscle dies. Coronary Artery Disease is believed to be hereditary, but it develops if a man smokes or drinks too much alcohol, has a history of diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
2. When the heart cannot pump blood at normal levels we speak of Congestive Heart Failure. In some cases the valves of the heart do not let through enough blood because they are too thin. They can let some blood flow backwards in the wrong direction, i.e. inside the heart. Forced to do extra work, the heart gets tired or fatigued and its muscle becomes too weak to cope with any serious strain.
3. The problem with electrical activity in the heart is known as Bad Heart Rhythms. The heart can beat too fast or too slow without any obvious reason. The fact is our heart can pump the blood well only if it enjoys normal rhythm. Otherwise this task becomes next to impossible. With the fast rhythm the heart does not have enough time to let the right amount of blood into the chambers, as a result the engine pumps too little blood with each beat. With the slow rhythm the heart does not make enough contractions to supply the body with the proper quantity of blood. Extremely bad heart rhythms can prevent the heart from pumping any blood at all.
The irony is that your tireless motor can become the reason of your immediate death! But in fact the things are not as bad as that! Every day contemporary pharmacology keeps saving hundreds of lives of humans experiencing various heart troubles.
If you know exactly what type of heart disease you suffer from, you can avoid bothering moments in the waiting room and order your drugs no prescription needed in any reliable online pharmacy. You will be pleasantly surprised by the immaculate service and the promptness of delivery of your order. What is more, a good internet drugstore is a cheap pharmacy. Actually is no usual drugstore can offer you the discounts available web. Raise the quality of your life right now! A great number of highly effective medicines are able of bringing you back your usual lifestyles.